India is hosting the 11th Annual General Meeting of the Asset Recovery Interagency Network Asia Pacific (ARIN-AP) in New Delhi from September 28 to October 1, 2026, under its 2026 presidency. The meeting’s agenda includes cyber-enabled fraud involving rapid conversion into virtual assets, misuse of payment gateways, and the freezing of virtual assets.
According to the Enforcement Directorate’s official release, discussions also cover non-conviction-based confiscation, restitution and the use of the INTERPOL Silver Notice. The agenda places virtual assets within the broader cross-border framework for tracing, freezing, confiscating, and returning proceeds of crime.
What ARIN-AP Is, and Why India Is Chairing
ARIN-AP describes itself as an informal network of law-enforcement and judicial contact points focused on recovering proceeds of crime across the Asia-Pacific region. It provides a channel for direct information exchange between practitioners alongside formal mutual legal-assistance mechanisms.
The network currently spans 32 member jurisdictions and 10 observers, with organizations including INTERPOL, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Bank participating as observers.
India’s role in the network has expanded in recent years. The Enforcement Directorate joined the ARIN-AP Steering Group at the 2024 Sydney AGM and assumed the network’s presidency for 2026. The New Delhi meeting is the first ARIN-AP AGM hosted by India.
Participants at the meeting include representatives from the Republic of Korea, Australia and Mongolia, as well as INTERPOL, UNODC, the World Bank, and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to the ED.
Virtual Assets Enter the Asset-Recovery Agenda
The inclusion of virtual assets reflects one of the cross-border recovery issues identified for discussion at the meeting.
The ED’s agenda specifically refers to cyber-enabled fraud involving the rapid conversion of proceeds into virtual assets, as well as the freezing of virtual assets. Other topics include misuse of payment aggregators and gateways, beneficial ownership, non-conviction-based confiscation and the restitution and return of recovered assets.
The reference to the INTERPOL Silver Notice adds another cross-border mechanism to the discussions. INTERPOL introduced the Silver Notice as a pilot in 2025 to help member countries obtain information about criminal assets held abroad and support subsequent seizure, confiscation or recovery requests.
The Silver Notice is broader than cryptocurrency: it can concern assets such as properties, vehicles, financial accounts and businesses. Its inclusion alongside virtual-asset freezing therefore places crypto within the wider proceeds-of-crime recovery framework rather than treating it as a separate enforcement system.
What India Says It Wants From Cross-Border Cooperation
Enforcement Directorate Director Rahul Navin used the meeting to highlight the gap between initial international cooperation and the later stages of an asset-recovery case. Navin said international cooperation is strongest during the early stages of cases, while cross-border confiscation, enforcement of foreign orders and repatriation can present greater difficulties.
The ED said it is seeking to strengthen cooperation across the full recovery process, including tracing, securing, confiscating, managing, and returning assets.
The Directorate also said that since April 2024, it has executed nearly 90% of international assistance requests received, either in full or in part. The figure refers to the handling of assistance requests; it does not represent the percentage of assets ultimately confiscated or returned.
India’s Domestic VDA Enforcement Framework
The regional meeting comes alongside India’s existing framework for addressing illicit activity involving virtual digital assets.
In March 2023, the government brought specified VDA-related activities within the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) framework. VDA service providers carrying out activities such as exchange, transfer or custody are required to register with the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) as reporting entities and comply with applicable AML obligations.
India does not currently have a comprehensive standalone statute regulating the VDA market, although crypto-related activities are subject to existing AML and tax requirements.
That distinction has remained part of India’s broader digital-asset policy debate. The Crypto Times recently reported on a parliamentary panel chief’s statement that the government is “not accepting VDAs, and not regulating them either,” reflecting the continuing debate over a broader regulatory framework for the sector.
At the same time, the ED’s operational involvement in crypto-related cases has expanded. The Crypto Times has reported on the agency’s role as custodian of seized cryptocurrency, as well as a ₹2,500-crore FEMA probe involving the VDA industry and ED raids targeting crypto links in a multi-state drug case.
Why It Matters
For the crypto sector, the ARIN-AP meeting places virtual-asset freezing within a broader multilateral asset-recovery framework.
The agenda combines virtual assets with established recovery tools covering international information exchange, confiscation, foreign orders, and restitution. For investigators dealing with assets that move across jurisdictions, those mechanisms determine what can happen after funds have been identified.
The ED has also highlighted confiscation and repatriation as stages where international cases can slow down, making actual recovery and return of assets a more concrete measure of cross-border cooperation.
India’s 2026 presidency therefore gives the country a role in coordinating discussions on those recovery mechanisms while its domestic agencies continue to handle VDA-related investigations and asset seizures.
Also read: India’s ED Expands Crypto & Cyber Tracing Under Renewed NFSU Pact
